Hungary lawmaker calls for list of Jews who pose a ‘security threat’ to nation
A call in the Hungarian parliament for Jews to be registered on lists as threats to national security sparked international condemnation of Nazi-style policies and a protest outside the legislature in Budapest on Tuesday.
photo FrooFroo
The lawmaker, from the far-right Jobbik party, dismissed demands he resign, however, and said his remarks during a debate on Monday had been misunderstood— he was, Marton Gyongyosi said, referring only to Hungarians with Israeli passports.
In his remarks, a video of which Jobbik posted on its party Web site, he went on: “I think such a conflict makes it timely to tally up people of Jewish ancestry who live here, especially in the Hungarian parliament and the Hungarian government, who, indeed, pose a national security risk to Hungary.”
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside parliament, many wearing the kind of yellow stars forced on Europe’s Jews in the 1940s and some chanting “Nazis go home” at Jobbik members.
“I am a Holocaust survivor,” local Jewish leader Gusztav Zoltai. “For people like me, this generates raw fear.” Though he dismissed the comments by Jobbik’s foreign affairs spokesman as opportunistic politicking, the executive director of the Hungarian Jewish Congregations’ Association, added: “This is the shame of Europe, the shame of the world.”
A Hungarian Jewish organization said it will file a complaint against a lawmaker who proposed drawing up a list of “dangerous” Jews in government.
“There is no alternative to legal recourse now,” the Unified Hungarian Jewish Congregation said Tuesday.
Rabbi Slomo Koves, a Chabad emissary and director of the Budapest-based Unified Hungarian Jewish Congregation, said his organization is initiating a “criminal procedure” against Gyongyosi’s “open Nazism inside Parliament.” The statement did not specify the procedure.
